My Sister Jodie Read online

  ‘OK,’ I whispered.

  ‘Thanks. You’re a pal,’ he said, and he squeezed my hand.

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  Three little ones were sitting in a row on a bench.

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  6

  I woke up very early the next morning and lay listening to all the birds. We never saw so much as a sparrow at home, but here there seemed to be great flocks of swallows and starlings, blackbirds and blue tits, all trilling and chirping outside the window.

  This was home now. I leaned up on one elbow and peered around the poky little room, wondering how Jodie and I could fix it up. I traced the bobbly pattern on the wallpaper with my fingertips. It was partly peeling away. I edged my fingers underneath and found layers of paper and then plain whitewashed wall. There was a little dent, a hole for a nail.

  I wondered if some small kitchen maid had once slept in this room. Perhaps she had a little looking glass hanging on the wall. Or maybe she kept an old brown photo of her parents and all her brothers and sisters to remind her of home. Maybe it was a 81

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  religious picture, a guardian angel spreading feathery white wings above a little child in a pinafore and button boots.

  I played I was the kitchen maid – Flossie? Mary-Ann? Kezia! – lying on one side of the little iron bed, with my best friend Pansy, the parlour maid, curled up close beside me. We had to scramble out of our nightgowns as soon as the grandfather clock in the corridor struck six. We stood shivering in our shifts, sponging our faces with cold water, and then struggled into our ugly uniforms and starched aprons.

  I wanted Jodie to wake up and play Servant Girls with me. I crawled into her bed. She cuddled me sleepily but wouldn’t even open her eyes.

  ‘Play with me, Jodie, please! I want you to be Pansy the parlour maid.’

  ‘ Who? Give it a rest, Pearl. It’s way too early, too early,’ she mumbled into her pillow.

  I picked up Mrs Wilberforce’s beautiful copy of The Secret Garden and lay on my tummy reading instead. I wasn’t sure I really liked Mary but she was very interesting. I loved her sweet maid, Martha. I muttered her words out loud, not quite sure what a Yorkshire accent sounded like.

  ‘What are you muttering about?’ said Jodie.

  ‘I’m reading The Secret Garden. Do you think there might be a secret garden here? There are lots of high walls overhung with ivy. Maybe we’ll find a locked door and then a key and we’ll have our own secret place?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, whatever,’ Jodie mumbled. ‘You and your boring old books. What time is it? Do you think Mum and Dad are up yet? I’m absolutely starving.

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  You wouldn’t go and make some toast for us, would you, Pearl? And a cup of tea?’

  I crept off to the kitchenette obediently, like a real Kezia the kitchen maid, and started making breakfast. I found a kettle and all the cups and plates in a cardboard box.

  Mum had already stowed the bread in its enamel bin and put the milk and butter in the tiny fridge.

  I wondered whether to take Mum and Dad a cup of tea too, but I wanted to savour this special time with Jodie. I always liked it so much better when there were just the two of us. I dug my finger into the butter and then the sugar while I was waiting for the kettle to boil. I licked the lovely big dollop of sugary butter and then started guiltily when I heard the floorboards creaking in the passage.

  ‘Naughty naughty!’ said Dad, bursting in on me.

  ‘Lucky your mother didn’t catch you!’

  ‘You won’t tell her, Dad, will you?’ I said, giving him a hug.

  ‘Well, I won’t have to tell her if you leave the butter all over poky little holes! Smooth it over, lovey. With a knife, not your finger! And is that toast? Don’t fill yourself up too much. Your mum’s going to be making eggs and bacon in the big kitchen and then we’ll all eat in the dining room.’

  ‘With the other children?’ I said.

  ‘Yep, though there’s only a handful still here.

  Imagine keeping your kids at school all through the holidays!’ Dad tutted and shook his head. ‘Make your mum and me a cuppa too, sweetheart.’

  Dad went off to take Mum her tea in bed. I carefully carried our two cups back to our bedroom.

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  Jodie had gone back to sleep, curled up in a little ball under the duvet.

  ‘Jodie? Jodie!’

  She played dead, eyes closed, utterly still, even when I tickled her. I knew she was playing but I panicked all the same, shaking her frantically.

  ‘Jodie!’

  ‘Yeah?’ she said, opening her eyes and grinning.

  ‘Don’t do that!’

  ‘Sorry, sorry, just kidding.’ She sat up and drank her tea and ate her toast. She ate mine too because I was too het up to be hungry. I’d see Harley at breakfast, the strange badger boy. We had our special secret.

  ‘Jodie, can I wear your red shoes today?’ I asked.

  ‘No, I’m wearing them.’

  ‘Just at breakfast, for a treat.’

  ‘They’re way too big for you.’

  ‘I could stuff the toes with tissues. Please. ’

  ‘OK, OK, so long as you’ll be my willing slave for the rest of the day.’

  ‘I’m always your willing slave,’ I said, thrusting my bare feet into Jodie’s shoes and tottering around in my nightie.

  ‘You look like Minnie Mouse,’ said Jodie. ‘You’re not meant to stick your bum out like that. Sort of swish your way along, like this.’ She jumped out of bed and demonstrated a model’s walk, though she had to zigzag nimbly around all the cardboard boxes.

  ‘Should we start getting everything unpacked and sorted?’ I said.

  ‘No! Not yet. Come on, let’s get dressed.’

  ‘Can I borrow one of your skirts too?’

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  She peered at me. ‘What is this, Pearl?’

  ‘I’m just sick of looking babyish.’

  But I looked even more of a baby in Jodie’s clothes, like a little girl dressing up. I gave her back her red shoes, sighing, and got dressed in my own skirt and top and sandals.

  Dad was wearing a bright checked shirt and denim jeans so stiff and new he could barely bend his legs. He had his workman’s belt buckled round his waist, its leather pouches filled with wrenches and hammers and screwdrivers. He had his new working boots on too, very big and purposeful.

  ‘Oh, Dad, you look like Bob the Builder!’ said Jodie, laughing at him. Then she saw his face and realized she’d hurt his feelings. ‘Only teasing! You look way cool, ever so hunky. Watch out for that Miss French. She’ll be nudging up to you and pinching your bum.’

  ‘You stop your nonsense, saucebox,’ said Dad. He gave her a kiss and blew me one too. Then he sniffed the air. ‘Can you smell bacon? Come on then, girls, let’s go and eat.’

  We went down the corridor and turned the corner. There was a big panel of bells set into the wall with copperplate handwriting underneath: Drawing Room; Sitting Room; Master Bedroom; room after room after room.

  ‘There’s nowhere near a hundred rooms though,’

  I said.

  ‘What are all the bells?’ said Jodie.

  ‘It’s the servants’ bells. They ring in the rooms and it rings here.’

  ‘Still?’ said Jodie. ‘So will they ring for Mum and Dad?’

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  ‘Who knows?’ said Dad. ‘Still, it’s not like Mr Wilberforce treats me like a servant. I don’t have to bow and scrape to him.’

  ‘Oh let’s, it’ll be fun,’ said Jodie, bowing extrava-gantly.

  She pushed